Other Side of the Glass
by FrozenPhantasm
Summary: Or, what I hope will happen in Season 6 when Red is still alive and Healy is back and all is right with the world again.
1. Chapter 1

"Reznikov!"

Red jumped about a foot in the air, almost falling off of her narrow bunk. Cautiously, she turned away from the wall—the same one she had been staring at for the last hour, for lack of anything more stimulating to do—and peered out. The CO whose face greeted her at the bars of her cell was unfamiliar, but then, they all were. She had been in Max for just a little more than a week; she'd yet to learn names. All she knew were faces, and which ones had been pointed out to her as guards that she shouldn't, under any circumstances, cross.

Once, the very idea of not crossing the guards would have been ludicrous to her. She'd known all of them down at camp, all the faces and the names, and the weaknesses and who was most easily manipulated. She had gotten too comfortable, made the mistake of thinking that she was invincible, and so when the new regime had come, she'd not had the good sense to keep her head down. Red had been arrogant, and she had paid for it.

Reflexively, her right hand went to her head. There was hair there now where there had been nothing before. She'd lost count of the days when they'd tossed her in the SHU, still had no idea how long she'd been in there, but had apparently it was long enough for a half-inch stubble to take the place of the locks that had been shorn off. When she arrived here, Gloria had been the first familiar person she'd seen, and it had been Gloria who, on a mission of mercy, took a handmade shiv to what remained of Red's hair, cutting it down until it was all one length. It had been a hack job, but at least now all of it would grow back in more or less the same.

"Get your ass up, inmate!" the CO bellowed. Red obeyed, mutely and without question. Her three cell mates, none of whom she had said more than a couple of words to, stared after her as she emerged from her bunk and went to meet the guard at the door to the cell, stepping through when he opened it and coming along when he motioned for her to follow him.

"Where are we going?" she asked, cautiously and without any expectation that he would actually tell her. She hadn't yet learned the rhythms of this place, but she knew that lunch had already passed and it was still too late for dinner, and it wasn't her block's yard day.

"You got a visitor," said the CO.

She stared at his back, not comprehending. Red hadn't had any visitors since she'd been processed in last week; her entire family was trying frantically to rearrange their schedules so that they could make it up here, but so far _nichego_. Not even her lawyer had come to consult with her, despite Yuri's insistence that he had called and spoken to him. Red was beginning to feel forgotten.

She tailed the CO into the visitation room, briefly shaken by the layout. Instead of everything being open like it was at camp, this room was composed of a few booths, a few of which were occupied by other inmates speaking into telephones. Red was led to the one at the farthest end, and her eyes flicked over to the glass separating her from the other side, expecting to see her lawyer, or one of her sons, perhaps even Dmitri.

Instead, her heart almost stopped when she saw the familiar face of the man who, in another life that now seemed centuries away, had been her counselor. Red sat down in her appointed chair without feeling its firmness underneath her, or her own weight as she settled into it.

"Sam?" she asked, in a voice not much higher than a whisper. The man behind the glass frowned, then picked up the telephone on his side, pointing to it. Red followed his lead, picking up her own phone and putting it to her ear.

"Hi, Red," Healy said. His voice was softer than she remembered it, but still wonderful to hear. It was familiar, it was something that she could latch onto.

"Sam," she repeated, surprised by the sound of her own voice, and the tears that seemed to be threatening for no good reason that she could think of.

"How are you?" Healy asked. For a moment, Red was tempted to lie, the way she would have if it had been one of her boys or her ex-husband sitting in Healy's place. But, she reasoned, if Healy was here, then there must have been a damn good reason for it. He'd come here on purpose to see her; he deserved the truth.

"Terrible," she replied, "What about you? You look like shit." She instantly regretted that, but after all, she had promised not to lie to him. Healy looked worn down, and older than he had when she'd seen him last, which was remarkable, really, because the last time they were together, he was fresh off of trying to drown himself.

"You don't look too great yourself," Healy said. His voice held no malice, though. Red met his eyes, and she could see that he hadn't meant to hurt her; instead, he looked sympathetic.

"What in the hell happened to your hair?" he asked.

"My hair was…" Red turned away, looked around the room to see who might be listening, and contemplated just how much she should—or could—tell him, before turning back and finishing, "It was a casualty of the riot."

"Jesus," he said, "Did someone do that to you?"

Red pressed her lips together, fighting the sting of tears at the corners of her eyes. She only nodded, and Healy sat back in his chair, cursing underneath his breath, clearly not knowing what else to say or do.

"How much do you know, Sam?" Red asked, "About what happened down at camp?"

Healy shrugged. "Not much," he admitted, "I…I did what you said, Red. For once in my life, I took your advice. I checked myself into the loony bin, and the first few days they kept me so drugged…it's like it all happened in a dream. I didn't even understand half of what was going on around me, much less anything from the outside world. But I've been reading the news, I've been scouring every source I could find. I wanted to know…what happened to you."

The corner of Red's mouth twitched involuntarily, and now she thought she really would cry.

"How did you even find out I was here?" she asked.

"Your file. As soon as I got back to work, I started hunting in the database for you. That's how I found out you'd gotten transferred."

Red took a few moments to chew on that; it was too much information to process all in one go. Healy was back at work, so that meant that the camp was up and running. And she was still here, so clearly they had no intention of downgrading her back to minimum security, at least not anytime soon. And Sam had looked for her. There were so many questions she had for him, about what the press was saying about the riots, what had happened to her girls, what was going to happen to _her_ , but somehow the only thing that resonated with her in that moment was that Sam looked for her, and that he'd found her.

"Sam, I…" A booming voice interrupted her, that of the CO who had brought her here, announcing that visiting hours ended in ten minutes.

"I have so much I want to ask you," Red said.

"Later," replied Healy, "Look, before I go, have you been in touch with your family? Have you gotten a chance to talk to your lawyer?"

Red shook her head. "I've talked to my son, but there's been no word from the lawyer."

"Okay," Healy said, "I'll see what I can do. I'm not technically your counselor anymore, so it might take some finagling, but I'll see what I can do." His eyes darted to the clock on the wall, and then to the CO at the far side of the room who, thankfully, was examining his fingernails instead of watching the inmates or their visitors. Healy leaned forward, and then whispered into the receiver, "I'm not going to leave you alone here, Galina. You understand?"

Red nodded, and now she was crying, and she knew she couldn't go back to her cell looking like she'd been weeping so she quickly dashed the tears away, but still she focused on Healy's eyes beyond the window that separated them. The CO announced the end of visiting hours, and Red put the down the phone, not wanting to find out what happened here if she disobeyed orders. But before she turned to leave, she put her palm to the glass, just for a brief moment, and mouthed the words "Thank you" to the man on the other side.


	2. Chapter 2

Red woke covered in sweat. Her back was in agony; all she had here was her flimsy mattress and one thin pillow. Unable to prop herself up like she usually did, she had been forced to sleep at an odd angle for weeks, and it was taking its toll on her back. Every muscle from her shoulders to her tailbone was throbbing in unison, tensing so that she could hardly breathe and then releasing painfully.

She told herself that this was why she was crying, because the pain was so intense and her nerves felt raw. Red knew that this was a lie, though. She'd had another nightmare. They had become routine by now, and she hadn't been able to sleep through the night ever since she'd arrived at Max. _Ironic_ , she thought bitterly, _the fucker is dead and he's still stealing my sleep_.

This brought on a fresh wave of tears. Red hunkered down on her cot, drawing her knees to her chest as best she could, which had the dual benefits of helping to calm her and also soothing her muscles. Still, she couldn't stop the tears falling from her eyes, or the sobs that slipped from her throat.

There was stirring in one of the other beds, and Red's stomach tightened in fear. She didn't know which of her cellmates she'd awakened, but it didn't matter. One was a child molester and rarely spoke, to Red anyway, but the other had a temper that went off at every little thing, and the third was silent all the time. Not in a sweet, soothing, Norma way. This one's silence was the dangerous kind, and Red was more wary of her than the ticking time bomb who seemed to constantly be exploding.

"Shut the fuck up!" hissed a voice in the darkness. It was the angry one. Red briefly debated getting up from her cot and challenging the woman. She knew, though, how stupid that would be. She had never been in a real prison fight in her life. The closest she had ever come was with Vee and her gang, and that had mostly entailed getting her ass kicked without any opportunity to get in a blow. Red knew that, even on a good day, if she had to fight someone, she would lose. And with the way her back was now, this was not close to a good day.

Anyway, she wasn't sure that she had the willpower to put any effort into a fight. She hated herself for it, but Red was tired of fighting. Not only that, she had lost all faith in her ability to change anything, or to protect anyone, including herself. She'd spent so much time fighting anyone and anything that threatened her, and it was all pointless in the end.

She'd tried to fight Mendez, and she lost her kitchen. She fought Vee, and all she'd gotten out of that was almost twenty years of back problems and a face that made her look like she'd spent her life getting into bar fights. And then Piscatella…Red had thrown herself headfirst into defeating him, and she shuddered every time she thought about what she had gotten for that.

And so, instead of throwing back at her cellmate, Red simply curled herself up tighter, trying so hard to stifle the occasional sniffle that escaped her. She heard her cellmate shifting in bed again, and then felt something hit her, hard, in the back, bouncing off of Red and landing on the concrete floor with a thud.

"I said shut the fuck up, you old bitch. Don't make me come over there."

Red's fists tightened, and, just for a moment, she felt a surge of rage that almost had her leaping off of her cot and striding across the cell to rip the other woman out of bed and kick her senseless. That passed as suddenly as it came, though, and Red just rolled over to face the wall, staring at the cinderblock and crying silent tears.


	3. Chapter 3

"I just gotta ask, man," Yuri Reznikov said, looking appraisingly at Healy from across the small, cramped little corner table, "Why do you care?"

Maksim Reznikov looked up from his laptop, on which he had been busily typing away, and now Healy was staring into twin sets of deep-blue eyes that were so much like Galina's that he wanted nothing more than to look away. Both of these men were, unmistakably, their mother's children. Though they didn't have her red hair, they both had her fair skin, and their facial features were more rugged versions of Red's. And the eldest, Yuri, had his mother's penetrating gaze. Healy knew that he was not the kind of person who missed much, and suspected that he would also have Red's uncanny gift for being able to spot a lie from a hundred yards off.

"I care about all of them," Healy replied, jabbing his finger at the newspaper that lay, open, on the table between them. The front page bore a picture of a ruined Litchfield, along with a headline about "The Litchfield 10," the appellation that the press had chosen to apply to the group of women who had been found in the swimming pool/bunker after all the other inmates were cleared. Healy's eyes flicked over it, and for some reason, he caught the name of the story's author. Andrew Nance. He knew that name, though just now he couldn't remember where he might have heard it before.

Yuri seemed unconvinced, and even Maksim, whom Healy had already guessed wasn't quite as sharp as his brother, looked skeptical.

"I was her counselor," he elaborated, "Your mother's, I mean. I was the counselor for a lot of them. Jefferson and Berlin and Chapman…"

Maksim nodded slowly, but Yuri's face was still stony.

"I care because they're good people," Healy said, "Most of them, anyway. And even the ones who are in there for terrible crimes are still people. Your mother's been thrown into Max to rot, and so have all the rest of them. I don't know if you two know what goes on in a federal maximum security prison, but let me tell you, it's nothing good. She doesn't deserve to be there, and neither do any of the others."

"I feel you, man, but what the hell are we supposed to do?" Yuri said, "You know what Ma got sent in for, you know who she was working with. _They_ were the ones who paid for her lawyer. I haven't had the heart to tell her this, but they're not going to pay for him anymore, and we can't afford him. Even if we all save up our money and let our kids starve—us and our brother and our dad—were couldn't afford even a cheap-ass attorney. I know, because I've been trying to hustle and get something together for her, but it's impossible."

"It's impossible now," Healy replied, "But it doesn't have to be. That's why we're setting up a collection, and that's why we're making the…what is it…the Bookface page?"

Maksim snorted. "Facebook, man," he corrected.

"Yeah," Healy replied.

"Yeah, how's that coming, anyway?" Yuri asked. Maksim slid the laptop over, and his brother looked at it, nodding as if in satisfaction and then turning the screen over so that Healy could see. Healy wasn't on social media; his technological savvy pretty much extended to knowing how to find videos on the internet and using his iPhone. Still, though, the page, which, following his instructions, Maksim had named "Justice for Galina Reznikova," looked good.

"May I?" he asked, gesturing towards the computer. Maksim nodded, looking not a little bit apprehensive. Healy touched the keys gingerly, looking around for a search box. When he located it, he typed in the names of the pages that he knew already existed. "Justice for the Litchfield 10." There were also already a few individual pages—"Justice for Piper Chapman," "Justice for Gloria Mendoza" and, Healy was pleased to see, "Justice for Suzanne Warren."

There were still so many who didn't yet have pages, though. Jefferson, Nichols…Vause. Healy had no particular love for Alex Vause. But, she was a victim as much as any of the others and, to even his own surprise, he found himself making a mental note to see if he could track down any family, or maybe even a few friends, who might try to advocate on her behalf.

Healy sent friend requests to each of the pages that he could find, and then navigated back to Red's.

"Looks good," he replied, scanning the bio that the two young men had written, and trying hard not to linger on the pictures, most of them old photographs showing a 1980s-and-90s-era Galina, a Galina that Healy had never known, holding babies or posing with younger, smaller versions of the men sitting across from him. With a nod, he handed the laptop back to Maksim.

"Now just keep an eye on that page, and on the donation page," Healy said, "If I'm right, the momentum is still strong enough, and enough people are still outraged, that we'll end up with people following her case and chipping in. That's what I'm hoping, anyway."

"I still don't understand why you're helping us with this," Yuri said, clearly not as ready or willing as his brother to let Healy off the hook, "Like, are you even allowed to do this? Can't you lose your job?"

"Yes," Healy replied, honestly. At the moment, though, he didn't care about that. He had been a counselor since both of the young men in front of him were in diapers. He'd gotten into this line of work because he wanted to help people. He had helped people, once. He'd known right from wrong once, and he'd done good work. Healy wanted that again. He had gotten off track, allowed his own personal demons to drag him off that path and gotten lost in his own pain and desperation. Now, he was slowly finding his way back to what he had once been, and he wanted to help people again.

He would have been lying to himself if he said he didn't want Galina out of Max for selfish reasons, as well. He wanted to see her regularly. Healy wanted her out of prison entirely, so that he could be free to get to know her in the way that he wanted to. Once, he had dreamed of nothing more than having her in his arms, pressing his lips to hers, feeling her body underneath his.

He still did, but it went deeper than that. Seeing her in Max, with dark circles below her reddened eyes, and her scalp showing through the bristles of her gray hair, seeing her nervous and jumpy and so obviously in pain…it had almost broken him. He wanted to save her from that, and for the first time, he didn't want to save her just so that he could be a hero. He wanted to save her just for the sake of knowing that she would be all right.

He couldn't tell her sons any of that, though, obviously, so instead he gave them a spiel about his profession being to help people, and about how he wanted to advocate on behalf of all of the Litchfield 10, not just Red. Once again, it was obvious that, while Yuri didn't exactly disbelieve him, he could tell that there was something else going on. Still, before he could say anything, Maksim let out a gasp of surprise, thumping his brother's shoulder and drawing his attention to the screen.

"Son of a bitch," he breathed, "Somebody just donated 50 bucks! And the page already has 100 followers. It's only been up for like ten minutes! Look at this shit!" He turned the screen back to Healy, who was gratified to see that Maksim was telling the truth. He nodded, and allowed himself the indulgence of a small smile. It was a good start. He just hoped it would be enough.


End file.
